ATILUS - Web Design | Internet Marketing

Why You Must Be Blogging

With the emergence of so many new forms of social media popping up almost everyday it is hard to keep up. In fact unless you have a team in place already it is all too easy to get distracted and find yourself spending the bulk of your time exploring new avenues instead of working those that have already proven their success. Embracing new technology and staying on top of the latest tools and trends is certainly wise and commendable, but that is no compensation for getting distracted and not disciplining yourself to consistent marketing.

This especially applies to your blog. Yes, article marketing and having your own online TV channel and radio show is great. But blogging should remain a part of your core group of marketing channels. It is great to have lots of quality content built up on various parts of your Internet presence, but without constantly offering something new both the search engines and your readership base are going to desert you. Even if you find other ways of marketing that are bringing more traffic, you should not ignore your blog. A good blog cannot only help you to continually improve your search engine rankings, but maintain the top spots, develop a loyal customer base and actually drive a lot more traffic to your website than you think. In fact even a mediocre Word Press blog can generate a significant amount of organic traffic.

While you may be able to launch a blog and see seriously impressive results in a month, the real power of a blog is not seen in a day, week or even months, it is an ongoing process that actually forms one of the most important cornerstones of your online presence and identity and like core muscles offers a powerful base for all of your other marketing to grow on and become more effective.

Check your web analytics and statistics regularly to constantly improve the effectiveness of your blog. Like any other worthwhile advertising avenues your blog deserves your dedication and commitment to helping it reach it’s full potential. If you ever find yourself slipping on your blogging, remind yourself that the world’s top blog is now worth over $42 million and that there are many others bringing in over $1 million per year!

Twitter - Right For My Business?

I found an article late last night entitled “Bye Bye Birdie: Why Twitter is on the Outs” that really sparked my interested in writing this article. The question of 

“Should your business use Twitter?” 

has come up more than once and it’s mostly been lumped in with social networking. In general I feel, and this is entirely my personal opinion, the answer is simple - it’s a NO. 

SHOULD YOUR BUSINESS USE TWITTER? 

NO!

But, such a huge conclusion requires some back story and justification. First what is Twitter?

What is Twitter?

Twitter’s mission, or explanation of their service has changed over the years. It started out as a “micro-blogging” service, that allowed you to answer the question, “what are you doing right now?” They have since updated this mantra to read “Discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.” Although each is relevant, the term “micro blog” might be the best answer to what exactly is twitter. It allows you to setup a page and immediately begin broadcasting content (small messages). Those that follow you are immediately notified when you post something. And alternatively you can read what others are writing and be notified when someone you are following makes a post.

My history with Twitter: I was initially introduced to the service and started using it lightly in 2007 at a web application developers conference in Miami. Back then no one had heard of it (I feel like I should be wearing this T-Shirt). It was hot in the web development community, mostly because of its creator Evan Williams, who also created Blogger. It was hyped as the next big thing… and guess what, it’s become the next big thing. But, I personally feel it is a trend, a site that, while allowing a valuable conversation to be discussed, is being ousted by similar features on more relevant, and better aligned tools (ala Google Buzz or Facebook’s status tool).  I remember being introduced to the tool at the conference and literally thinking “what the f@#! is this? who is going to use it? and how will it make money?” To me it always seemed like a cool little tool, but one that the masses would never fully adopt. 

And they haven’t. 

Here’s the problem with Twitter: 

Twitter introduced the masses to the idea of a “status.” Allowing all of us to tell everyone we found necessary, or everyone that was curious, exactly what we were up to, what we were thinking, doing, etc. But, unfortunately I think others are taking the reigns and soon Twitter will be no more. Let me explain.

As outlined in the terrific article Bye Bye Birdie: Why Twitter is on the Outs… very few people actively use twitter. Here are the stats from the article, broken out from the linked video regarding social media from Edison Research.

Twitter Usage in America 2010 from Tom Webster on Vimeo.

The Good: 

• only 5% of people in the US knew what Twitter was in 2008
• Nearly 90% of people  in the US know what Twitter is in 2010! (That’s an 1800% increase!)

The Bad: 

• in 2008 less than 1% of people in the U.S. were using Twitter
• in 2010 approximately 7% of people use Twitter

The Ugly: 

• Only 1/3 of twitter users use it daily
• in 2010 roughly 41% of the population has a Facebook profile, making Twitter, relatively speaking, very well known, but not widely used.

Conclusion

Considering the ubiquity of twitter, the fact that it is here is undeniable. But, the numbers speak for themselves. As the video referenced above highlights towards the end, traditional media has been responsible for the explosion of the KNOWLEDGE of twitter.

I remember it was being referenced daily during the elections in Iran as a source by CNN and others on what was happening on the ground at that time.

But, awareness is NOT the same as use, and relatively speaking very few Americans actually use Twitter. And this makes sense. In comparison to similarly released tools from Facebook (which has a MUCH larger national and International audience) Twitter is confusing and requires one to duplicate their efforts (IE, why would I use twitter when I’m already connected to those that are important and can broadcast what I need on Facebook?).

The answer is simple - Twitter is more public - but your average user may not want that and even if they do, explaining the difference is difficult.

Finally, there’s the matter of simple business sustainability. How will Twitter stay afloat against juggernauts like Google? Google is already making money from AdSense/AdWords, monetizing their newly released Google Buzz through their network of small text ads. Twitter has yet to find a way to make money.

For all of these reasons I believe that although Twitter can and does provide value, it will not generally be the best use of your time as a person or company looking to market your business online. It should definitely fall to the wayside at this time in terms of priority. And I hesitate to say this trend (twitter) will continue to be around in the next 2 years. 

LinkedIN Advertising Review

Are you thinking about using LinkedIN’s advertising? Well I was too! And as I explained in a previous post… I like to test all advertising and new technology on Atilus BEFORE applying it or pushing it to clients. 

About two weeks ago I wrote a post about our decision to test out LinkedIN’s advertising system after being offered a substantial coupon via email.

After two weeks of using the system (and the entire $250 coupon) we have come to some conclusions.

LINKEDIN STILL HAS A WAYS TO GO BEFORE IT’S ADVERTISING SYSTEM WILL BE OF LARGE VALUE

Okay, let me clarify some points on this. First of all, if you’re considering using LinkedIN you must first consider WHO is on LinkedIN… consider the website’s audience. Personally I like that it’s NOT facebook. It is not a site for everyone and their grandmother (no offense to grandmother’s out there).

...I love grandmothers (that was for you Jessica)...

Attempts at getting inflated birthday gifts aside LinkedIN is a business networking site, geared towards the true networking of business professionals. Personally I am ONLY connected to people I have actually met and done business with. I don’t have “friends” on LinkedIN. However, I don’t really use LinkedIN. I keep my resume up to date. I keep my recommendations up to date (for Atilus’ references/testimonials). I will occasionally go on the site because an old associate messages me. But, other than that I don’t use the site. I only see it being used for the above purposes as well as two others:

• Searching for a Job
• Asking Questions (they have a nice, if redundant Q/A section)

With that said… do all of the above offer enough opportunity for YOU (a potential advertiser) to get your message in front of a targeted audience? To give you an example if you were promoting a full-proof method to get hired, perhaps a guide to resumes/job solicitations, LinkedIN would be perfect. Personally, after millions of impressions and hundreds of dollars spent, we received only a few clicks and no actual leads. LinkedIN turned out to be MUCH more expensive, and less targeted (at least for our business), than other pay per click methods (AdWords, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook).

Additionally even if the people on LinkedIN performing the activities I mentioned above appeals to you and your business, I think the system has just a little bit farther to go in the way of targeting. For example only a limited number of targeting options were allowed and geographically speaking, their are a very limited number of major metropolitan areas offered. This meant I had to make a trade off between how targeted my audience was AND I wasn’t able to present my message in front of a geographically relevant audience.

Have your own opinions on LinkedIN’s advertising platform? Leave a comment!

LinkedIN Advertising First Impressions

A couple of days ago I received an email from LinkedIN.

Background on my Experience With LinkedIN:

I have been a member of LinkedIN since day 1, but honestly, up until recently I thought it was complete rubbish. It just tries too hard to be everything else, although I’m starting to appreciate some of the directions it’s gone in. What do I mean by “everything else?” Well, it has an update bar - like twitter (and more recently Facebook), it now allows “friends” not just business connections ala Facebook, it has a whole question/answer section (a great idea), but it too closely mirrors Yahoo Answers system. And much more (blogging, pictures, etc.)...

But, amid all of this social media gobalee-gook it does have some awesome features:

• Interactive Resume - Your profile is MUCH more like a resume than other social networks and allows you to always have an updated copy - an do some personal branding should someone Google you.
• Recommendations - This is perhaps the greatest feature. You can quickly solicit others to write a recommendation on you or your company. Anyone on LinkedIN can quickly see how much love you have.
• Business-Centered - Regardless of the features, everything is more “business-centric.” I receive almost no spam, and this is a great place to keep in touch with business contacts. I don’t want to befriend clients on Facebook so they can see my drunken debacles (just kidding - “or is he?”).

So a few days ago I got an email advertising LinkedIN’s own advertising network. Truth be told I had no idea this existed, and expected something akin to Facebook’s own advertising platform. Because the ad featured an enticing coupon, we decided to jump in. Before recommending any products/services to our clients we like to try it out ourselves in order to understand it both technically as well as financially (does it REALLY WORK and will it provide a return?!).

Below is a list of first impressions, good and bad, as well as a quick summary. 

LinkedIN Advertising Pros

• Easy to Setup - Setup took about 2 minutes which involved logging into my existing account, creating 1 small text ad, uploading Atilus’ logo, targeting certain groups/areas, and then inputting credit card and coupon information.
• Targeting - I love this about Facebook and now too, about LinkedIN. You can target people based on their position, demographic, geography, and much more. 

LinkedIN Advertising Cons

• Limited Targeting - You can only target people by a few categories at a time (I believe it was 3) even though they offer the ability to target by much more, they get blurred out once you’ve selected three target groups. What does this mean? Well - our ad will be shown to nearly 3,000,000 people. I don’t want this, it’s far too many. I’d really appreciate the ability to further drill down to the exact people that should be seeing the ad. As it stands I had to make a sacrifice in terms of what department I wanted to show it to in exchange for a geographic location. Additionally, only a few major metropolitan areas are currently target-able (IE, you can’t just select “Florida” but instead must select Miami/Fort Lauderdale or Tampa/St. Pete). 
• Expensive - VERY expensive compared to similar offerings on Facebook and even much larger PPC networks like AdWords. To give you an example LinkedIN suggests a price per click during the setup process and it recommended $6/click. Even with the $250 coupon, that amounts to only about 40 clicks. Similarly, they have a very high daily budget - $10/day or a minimum of $300/month (if you calculate it that way). 
• Reporting - Jury is still out on this one, but the reporting seems pretty rudimentary. How many people saw the ad, and did they click?

LinkedIN Advertising Review Conclusion

At the end of the month I will review everything and do a larger recap/review once we have some actual data to present to you. But, for now, the major advantage, as I see it, that LinkedIN offers is targeting. I always felt that, although performance on networks like Facebook, was always not as good as other advertising solutions like conventional PPC advertising (via Google AdWords) they do answer the question:

“How do I get in front of an audience that usually needs my services or products, but may not be looking for them at this moment?righ”

AdWords, gets you in front of that audience the moment they are searching, but every other opportunity is lost. If they’re not searching, you can’t get to them. With this kind of advertising, where you target them based on their position, employer, etc. NOW YOU CAN. For the future I see this being a tool great for B2B businesses, IE if you sell printers, computers, consulting, and any other products or services to businesses, this could be huge AND you don’t have to deal with (and waste your money on) the riff raff that are on other social networks. 

It still has a ways to go (targeting needs to get better), but it looks like this might be an amazing advertising tool for businesses targeting other businesses down the road. 

As an aside, because of the nature of the site, as well as the advertisers I do think LinkedIN will always be much more expensive than Facebook ads or even pay per click advertising. However, that may be a moot point if the people you target purchase or sign up more. 

We’ll see…

Internet Success Takes Hard Work

I was going to write a productivity post, but that needs to wait for another time, as I stumbled upon something even more juicy this evening while perusing LinkedIn. 

Thanks to Neil Patel for this great find. 

I just got done reading an awesome post over at Daily Blog Tips entitled: “Interview: 12 Top Online Entrepreneurs” odds are you have probably heard SOME of the names on the list and, if, like us at Atilus, you work in the web industry, odds are you’ve heard of everyone on the list. Basically it is a survey of 12 of the most well-known and successful online entrepreneurs in regards to how they work, and how HARD they work. The 12 interviewed included: 

• Trent Hamm
• Collis Ta’eed
• Chris Garrett
• Dan Schawbel
• Jonathan Volk
• Yaro Stark
• Shawn Collins
• Chris Pearson
• Neil Patel
• Aaron Wall
• Rand Fishkin
• Darren Rowse

And you may be completely blown away by the results.

You see, we get asked to do numerous AMAZING web ventures all the time, but more than planning, money, strategy, or any other “thing” you can bring to the table we like to discuss good ‘ole fashioned HARD WORK. Based on the interview, these top entrepreneurs are no strangers to hard work and despite ALREADY BEING SUCCESSFUL they continue to work their asses off cultivating their businesses, pleasing their customers, and bringing business in the door.

The Internet is no different than any conventional business. Sure, your 100+ hours/week can result in larger returns than other businesses or ventures, but it still takes dedication. I highly recommend checking out the post.